Practice Management news January 2007

Is everybody happy? Are employees enthusiastic, with high productivity and performance or are they costing the business money in turnover or health care costs? Are customers satisfied with the service and showing their appreciation with referrals? Most businesses are ignoring the real impact of happiness in business, despite mounting evidence that proves its importance at work. "Stories on the relationship between workplace happiness and employee productivity have made the cover of The Economist and have been featured in The New York Times Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

Managers at production and manufacturing companies responded on the impact of high, volatile energy costs in Industry Direction's second annual study, The Energy Cost Factor: Transforming the Supply Chain to Offset Margin Squeeze. Responses from 139 respondents from a wide range of industrial companies were recorded."This year's findings are significant because they demonstrate that companies are not simply bearing the brunt of high energy costs in the most obvious areas of the supply chain,'" said William Brandel, Principal at Industry Directions.

College seniors can look forward to the best job market in years, with employers planning to hire 17-percent more graduates from the class of 2007 than they did from last year's class.The National Association of Colleges and Employers said in its Job Outlook 2007 survey that more than half the employers surveyed said they planned to increase hiring, with only five-percent planning a decrease, the Wall Street Journal reported. The association predicted this year would be the best job market since 2000-2001.Deloitte & Touche is contributing to the recruiting push in a big way.

To define wealth management, one has to look as far as his or her financial discipline. To an investment advisor, it may mean growing assets. To an insurance advisor, it may mean tax-efficient estate preservation and to an accountant, it may mean the best way to sell a business to minimize taxes. One definition that I personally like is taken from the book “Accountants as Wealth Managers.” The authors define wealth management as the blending of core accounting services, plus investment management, plus advanced planning insurance solutions.

Anyone who has ever held the phone and listened to a recorded message, over and over -- "Your call is important to us, but all our operators are busy helping other customers," -- understands that customers want service and it tops the confidence and loyalty polls as Web 2.0 consumers force businesses to focus their attention on improvement in 2007. "Consumer polls in 2006 pointed to customer service as a critical reason for selecting one business over another business," said Ian Skawinski of White Hat Marketing.

The business community is awash in books, manuals and courses on what it takes to be a great leader. So why do you need another one? Consider the source: Ram Charan, coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and author of What the CEO Wants You to Know. One of the world's most influential business advisors, Charan has lent his expertise to such corporations as Verizon, General Electric, DuPont and KLM.